The Copper City - Chris Scott Wilson [1]
It was why she was here.
“Climb down, Pete, and sit a spell.” Quantro stalked back to the fire, then stooped to shake the coffee-pot. Somehow, he couldn’t face looking at the girl. He had deserted her, deciding it was best to leave her with her own people, where she belonged, rather than taking her out of Mexico with him. His own future lay back across the border and, attracted to her though he was, he knew she could only be a burden to him. But, as she had that time by the pool, it seemed she had again contradicted his decision almost as quickly as he made it. If they hadn’t been interrupted, he would surely have succumbed to her charms. He was aware of his own powerful feelings for her, but something in him bridled that she should take matters a man should decide into her own hands. As he crouched by the fire, pouring coffee, he glanced sideways at her. Angry as he was, he was still glad she was here. Since he had ridden away from the Apache camp, he had felt lonely. That in itself was crazy. It had only been a few hours, and in the two years before Pete had found him dying on the Devil’s Plateau, not far from EI Camino del Diablo, The Devil’s Road, in Arizona Territory, Quantro had been almost constantly alone, riding his solitary mission of vengeance.
Like all trails of vengeance, it had run in circles. After killing the last of the four men responsible for his parents’ murder, he had himself been hunted down by the man’s son. To stay alive, he had killed the boy, but not before being badly wounded himself. Then Pete had found him, and White-Wing had attended his sickbed.
“How’d you figure it was us?” Pete asked, squatting to wrap his hands around the hot tin mug.
Quantro grinned. “When I stopped at the head of the pass just before sundown, I saw the horses behind me. Who else would it be?”
“What about Crawling-Snake?”
“One day it’ll be him coming up behind me, but not today. I reckon he must be in a bad way after White-Wing used my rifle on him.”
Pete sipped at his coffee then sniffed. “Heard his face didn’t look all too pretty either.”
Quantro said nothing, remembering Crawling-Snake’s face when the fish-hook caught in the corner of his eye, then gouged a zigzag trail down his cheek. The blood had poured into the clear water of the creek where they’d fought. The Apache hadn’t been the most handsome of men before, and he certainly wouldn’t be now.
“And now?” Pete asked, eyeing the younger man’s closed face.
Quantro sighed and looked across the fire. “I’d figured on going back up to Colorado and finding me a job. I want a ranch, so I can carry on where my father left off.”
“Buying ranches costs a whole heap of money.”
“I know, but I’ll do it some way.”
“Bounty hunting, like before?”
Quantro shook his head. “No, that’s over. I only took the bounties on those killers because it paid the way to get the others. I was just lucky they were already wanted.”
“You need another way now.”
Quantro looked over his shoulder to White-Wing. She had already picketed the two riding ponies alongside the buckskin and was now unloading the packhorse. Although still irritated at her taking the notion to follow him, he still took pleasure in watching the way she moved, her strong thighs straining against her doeskin dress as she heaved supplies down from the pony’s back. He remembered her standing naked before him at the creek, only seconds before Crawling-Snake had jumped him…
“She’s your woman now,” Pete said.
“She’s nobody’s woman,” Quantro